Beyond the Equator’s story began about 10 years ago when a Louisiana sugarcane farmer, Carl, enamored with the potential of superfoods, traveled to South America in search of new farming opportunities. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was Carl’s landing place, and there he began a chia farm with a group of local Bolivians. Over the next 7-8 years, Carl and his team worked to build a responsible and sustainable farming company, concentrating primarily on chia as well as mung beans, quinoa, and cow peas. In 2016 we decided we could do more for the end consumer by integrating superfoods into everyday use products; and thus, Beyond the Equator was born.

Carl in one of our immature quinoa fields

We very strongly believe that chia seeds are the most underrated superfood in the world, and while experimenting with different recipes we realized that chia was also particularly unique in its ability to absorb and stabilize liquid. With that in mind, we eventually found ourselves experimenting with protein shakes, plant-based milk, and cereals. The a-ha moment for us was when we realized how well ground chia seeds mix with nut and seed butters. Once we added chia, the butters hardly separated and retained a very smooth and creamy texture. As we continued developing our seed butter, we began researching just how our product might fit for consumers and that was where we first found out about the increasing prevalence of nut allergies. While no one at Beyond the Equator has any allergy issues, we all know someone who does and we quickly reached out to friends and family to hear their first-hand takes. Two things were made clear to us: there aren’t currently enough options for those who have allergies and over the last decade allergies have become even more prevalent. Furthermore, with many schools banning nuts outright, it was difficult for parents to keep the peanut butter at home when there weren’t that many other choices besides getting rid of the classic PB&J altogether. We immediately knew that we had the solution to this problem and forged full steam ahead developing our seed butter. Our final recipe is 5 Seed Butter, which features sunflower seeds as the main seed followed by chia, flax, hemp, and pumpkin. Our butter is also all natural including only the 5 seeds, 1 gram of cane sugar, salt, and Vitamin E as the preservative.

We launched our 5 Seed Butter in December of 2017 and are now proudly in 18 grocery stores in Southern Louisiana, as well as Amazon Prime. The response from the community—not only those with allergies but also those who enjoy nut and seed butters in general—has been wonderful, and we feel that we are really helping those with allergies and those trying to avoid nuts in schools or at work by providing them a delicious alternative to peanut butter.